As Donald Trump's 'dictator' slur signals whose side he's on in Ukraine War, UK must urgently rearm

For some, the sight of Lance Corporal Jamie Killorn playing the bagpipes during a massive Nato exercise in Romania will recall the extraordinary story of Bill Millin, who piped Allied soldiers ashore at Sword Beach on D-Day in 1944. Millin later learned captured German snipers had said they didn’t shoot him because they thought he had gone mad.

The peace dividends that followed the end of the Second World War and then the Cold War have seen the British Army much reduced. In 2009, it had some 100,000 regular soldiers; today there are only about 70,000, the lowest number since the Napoleonic Wars.

That peace dividend is now played out and the UK – despite economic ‘stagflation’, the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and other pressures on the public purse – must urgently and dramatically increase defence spending as dark shadows loom over Europe’s immediate future.

Donald Trump’s utterly appalling social media rant about Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he called him a “dictator” and blamed him for the war, represents the strongest sign yet that he is the ‘commander in chief’ of what former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney has called her party’s “Putin wing”. Even if Trump’s remarks are some kind of a negotiating tactic, they are just as despicable.

The statue of Bill Millin, who played the bagpipes as Allied forces landed at Sword Beach on D-Day in 1944, at Colleville-Montgomery near Caen, Normandy (Picture: Matt Cardy) | Getty Images

Putin is the dictator

Ukraine should have held an election last year, but did not do so because it is fighting a war for its very survival and large numbers of its citizens are under Russian occupation. The decision to postpone elections was backed by all parties in Ukraine’s parliament in November.

Zelensky, who had dared to make a dignified response after Trump earlier spread Russian disinformation about his popularity, is no tyrant, but Vladimir Putin obviously is. Putin’s chief political rival, Alexei Navalny, was thrown in prison on trumped up charges, where he became one of the many opposition figures to die in suspicious circumstances. In other words, he was murdered.

Russians who state the obvious truth that there is a “war” in Ukraine risk being sent to prison. They are legally required to call it a “special military operation”, an Orwellian phrase designed to exert control and instil fear about what can and cannot be said as much as anything else.

All British politicians – but particularly those who have aligned themselves with Trump – must condemn his remarks in no uncertain terms. The UK must also move quickly to reassure Ukraine and the European Union that this country will stand with them, regardless of Trump’s deranged remarks.

Lance Corporal Jamie Killorn plays the pipes during Nato's Steadfast Dart military exercise in Smardan, eastern Romania (Picture: Vadim Ghirda) | AP

‘Buy, buy, buy’

Other European countries have already realised the seriousness of the situation, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announcing that her government will spend an extra £5.5 billion on defence over the next two years.

“We don't know what he [Putin] is planning, but we know that he and Russia are in the process of rearming,” she said yesterday, telling her defence minister to “buy, buy, buy!” and adding: “If we can't get the best equipment, buy the next best. There's only one thing that counts now, and that's speed.”

If the US abandons Ukraine, Europe must step into the breach even though, without the deterring effect of American military might, the chances of our troops being drawn into the war at some point would be significantly higher. And we cannot send them into battle without sufficient numbers and the necessary equipment.

With Trump in the White House, the UK and Europe must prepare for war, with all its grief, heroism and madness, on a scale not seen since the days when a brave piper rallied his comrades on the Normandy beaches – and pray for peace.